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Mitya Writes

@watchingthesky.bsky.social
111 followers 141 following 54 posts

I write about perfume, chronic pain, & memory. Perfume columnist for The Attic on Eighth. Words in Catapult. Has a novel (published) and a chapbook (published) and 678 notes app poems (nope never). justwatchingthesky.substack.com

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Reposted by Mitya Writes
Electric Literature @electricliterature.com · 24/05/2025
"I'm realizing I'm being vague here. That's intentional." (via @literaryhub.bsky.social)
buff.ly
None of Your Business: Why Writers Shouldn’t Feel Obligated to Share Too Much
If I tell you secrets about my personal life, will you look at my new book? My first book, a novel called After World, was a relatively comfortable book for me to market in many ways. It takes plac…
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The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN) @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 27/05/2025
Keep indie publishing thriving: Each £3 directory listing helps raise money (33% donated) for the #BrokenSpineAward Fundraiser—our £5000 poetry prize goal for 2026. thebrokenspine.co.uk...
thebrokenspine.co.uk
Join Our Independent Press Directory - The Broken Spine
At The Broken Spine, collaboration and community have always been at the heart of what we do. We believe in uplifting fellow independent presses, writers, and
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Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
Writers: before you sign a contract with a publisher, make sure AI isn't replacing your illustrator, your translator, your editor, your jacket designer. Readers: if you're thinking of buying a book, do the same. Refuse. Resist. If AI garbage doesn't sell, people will stop making it.
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Brooke @brooklynmarie.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
theguardian.com
Librarians in UK increasingly asked to remove books, as influence of US pressure groups spreads
Anecdotal evidence suggests a rise in requests to take books off shelves, particularly LGBTQ+ titles
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Jeff Yang @originalsp.in · 15/04/2025
What everyone seems to be letting the Trump propaganda machine get away with is that it DOES. NOT. MATTER if he was a nice guy or not. The point is he was legally allowed to be here, was grabbed by mistake and deported sans due process as part of a vast illegal rendition scheme. That’s what matters.
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Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
One of hundreds of people abducted by ICE and sold to slavery in El Salvador was a 19 year old with no criminal record in the US or Venezuela and no tattoos of any kind. An ICE kidnapper who grabbed him outside his house said, "He's not the one." The other said, "Take him anyway." So they did.
Wilmer only found out his son had been detained after receiving a phone call on March 15 from his nephew, Luis, who lives with them. That morning was their last time together; they had gone around the corner to do their laundry. Later that day, Wilmer said that his son met with a friend to get help with some errands at the American Red Cross. He learned this from Luis, who looked at the situation from inside the apartment: when his son was on his way back, just steps from his home when ICE agents stopped him. “The officers grabbed him and two other boys right at the entrance to our building. One said, ‘No, he’s not the one,’ like they were looking for someone else. But the other said, ‘Take him anyway.'”

That moment marked the beginning of Wilmer’s search for answers — answers he’s still waiting for.
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Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
The last living titan of the Latin American literary “boom” and one of the most influential writers of the Spanish-speaking world died on Sunday. lithub.com/mario-vargas...
lithub.com
Mario Vargas Llosa has died at 89.
The Nobel Prize-winning Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, the last living titan of the Latin American literary “boom,” and one of the most influential writers of the Spanish-speakin…
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Celeste Ng @pronounced-ing.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
This is amazing. And makes me think of BLUEPRINT FOR REVOLUTION, which I highly recommend if you haven't read.
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Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
The right for autistic people with intellectual disabilities (and other disabled people) to live outside of institutions was only granted by the US Supreme Court in 1999.
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The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN) @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 13/04/2025
Building a free indie book promo network: 1 form = 30+ blogs/pods/newsletters ready to feature your work. No fees. No gatekeeping. Just access. Want in? #LiftToTheSky #PoemsAbout #PoetsOfBlueSky shorturl.at/v64QI DM me if you're a blogger, podcaster, or press. #indielit #bookbloggers #indiebooks
shorturl.at
No More Cold Pitches: Building a Free Indie Publishing Network That Actually Works - The Broken Spine
The indie lit scene is full of passion. Full of people doing it for the love — writing, publishing, reviewing, shouting into the void just to keep the signal
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Celeste Ng @pronounced-ing.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Book lovers: support your library, support democracy, get a free book, all at the same time 👇👇👇
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Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation @brinkerhoffpoetry.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
"i no longer care how much my body must be taxed before i can be free. the bill is past due." Sin à Tes Souhaits performs "10 Toes Down" in the final online release of our series of poem films from "Like a Hammer: Poets on Mass Incarceration," made with @haymarketbooks.org.
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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 02/04/2025
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke: It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash Is added to her wounds.
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Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
Every weekday this entire month, you can call the FSG Poetry Hotline and hear an FSG author read a poem, right into your personal ear.
lithub.com
Celebrate National Poetry Month with FSG’s Dial-A-Poem.
The American Academy of Poets launched National Poetry Month in 1996. Since then, April has been synonymous in some circles with verse. Even before that, the dawn of spring has felt poetic. Eliot c…
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Caitlin G. DeAngelis @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Gang members should not be disappeared to an unaccountable torture prison either.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
Once thing we can say for certain is that Donald Trump has been convicted of more crimes than some of the people he is deporting to a black hole in el salvador with no due process or recourse www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
Trump’s Salvadoran Gulag
To be deported, one does not need to be a drug dealer or a terrorist; apparently, having tattoos and being Venezuelan is enough.
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Mitya Writes @watchingthesky.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
My author personal branding strategy is to spend approx. ten (10) minutes a week on SAfrican author Insta before I have too much of an urge to dry heave, and then submit one (1) poem every six months before throwing up. I think it's both reasonable and ambitious.
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Megan Stevens @megstev.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
I’m with you on this. I finished treatment for lymphoma 15mo ago, and my hubby’s just started treatment for bladder cancer. So, all I can say is if you see swollen lymph nodes, or if you see blood in your pee, see your GP.
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The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN) @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 22/03/2025
🖋️ Writers, you have until April 30 to submit your winter-themed short fiction. Don’t wait—send us your best work today! Guidelines: shorturl.at/e3Qwr #SootAndBoots #Festive #ShortFiction #SubmissionWindow
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SmokeLong Quarterly @smokelong.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
ATTN Publishers of hybrid forms! This summer SmokeLong will feature publishers who blur the borders between flash, essay, poetry, memoir, and longer narrative forms. We'd love to work with you. If you have a few minutes, please fill in our Google form. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Publishers of Hybrid Forms
This Google form is for publishers of narrative poetry, novels or novellas in flash, and other literary works that don't easily fit conventional categories. These works will have a flash element (work...
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Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
When I wrote my camps book, people sometimes had difficulty understanding how concentration-camp regimes were proud of what they were doing and wanted attention for it, even as they also hoped to keep many aspects secret and terrorize vulnerable classes. Anyway, this is what that looks like.
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Jason Goldman @goldman.blue · 15/02/2025
This drives me more insane than any other policy failure. This is forcing babies to die of cured illnesses because pre-Enlightenment thinking is now in vogue.
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Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
Want to read Palestinian books? A new service will deliver them to your door.
lithub.com
A new subscription service will deliver books on Palestine to your door.
The Palestine Festival of Literature has launched a curated subscription service, the PalFest Bookshelf, which will deliver the best new books on Palestine, along with bespoke extras, straight to y…
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Kit’s ancestors want better than this @littlefreekit.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
This is excellent material if you’re asking yourself what you can do. It’s not a list of suggestions; it’s an interactive workbook to help you figure out what works with your time, skills, and motivations.
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Julie S. Lalonde @julieslalonde.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Don't drown in despair at the state of the world. Learn bystander intervention and equip yourself with the skills you need to build a safer world. Open to anyone, anywhere 12+ Cameras/mics muted, so you're never on the spot. Not recorded, so don't miss out! Register : zoom.us/webinar/regi...
Stand Up against Street Harassment

We keep each other safe!

February 17, 2025
Noon-1pm EST
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Hugh Ryan @hughryan.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
At the stonewall monument rn
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
Part of why I launched my newsletter on Ghost (now that people are talking again about Substack's Nazi problem, to which I'd add that Substack has Marc Andreessen and Y-Combinator behind it, which is at a minimum repellant)....
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Wild Hunt Books @wildhuntbooks.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
Did you know that we sell all our books as ebooks for any e-reader, including Kindle?? Also, if you pre-order an upcoming book, we'll send it early before the pub date. Now, isn't that better than Amazon? www.wildhuntbooks.co.uk/books/ebook #mystery #magicalrealism #ghosts #folklore
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Lorna Gibb @drlornagibb.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
This is removing the word asylum from our country. It's shameful. My late dad was staunch Labour and he would weep if he could see this.
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Mikael Thalen @mikaelthalen.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
NEW: A group known as the 'puppygirl hacker polycule' has leaked thousands of police training & policy manuals from departments across the country www.dailydot.com/debug/lexipo...
dailydot.com
EXCLUSIVE: Hackers leak cop manuals for departments nationwide after breaching major provider
Critics accuse the company of wielding outsized private influence on public policing.
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mlby25.bsky.social @mlby25.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Helpful summary with things we can do
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Dr. Emily Hamilton-Honey @hermioneclone.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Y'all, if you haven't checked out the @haymarketbooks.org Black History Month sale yet, it is WELL WORTH IT. I bought three, and had to restrain myself from buying many more! www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/65-40-...
haymarketbooks.org
40% OFF Haymarket Books on the Struggle for Black Liberation
Black History Month is not only a celebration of the rich history of Black life, politics, culture, and struggle. It is also a reminder to engage every day with that history as we ...
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Alina Stefanescu @alinaetc.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Lord, I confess I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe. Like everyone else, I want a storm I can dance in. I want an excuse to change my life. - Franny Choi, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On
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Alina Stefanescu @alinaetc.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
This is exactly correct. If you need more evidence, click over to the MAGA cauldron known as Fox News today. Neoliberals and Trump are both big on “law and order” and empire.
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Blue state Democrats take a page from Trump's playbook in Ivy
League crackdown
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Lucy @leftliblucy.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
There's a real "it can't happen here" mentality that prevents a lot of Americans from having a clear-eyed view about the fragility of American democracy. Dictatorship is always something they see on the news about other countries, never something to happen at home
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Brian Hiatt @hiattb.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
A real look at my X feed
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Dylan Freedman @dylanfreedman.nytimes.com · 09/02/2025
Top comment on the recent NYT story on DOGE’s young aides www.nytimes.com/shared/comme...
Goran
World - yesterday

As someone who grew up under an authoritarian regime, I can offer one crucial piece of advice: time is everything. If you don’t stand up now—if you don’t protest, resist, disrupt, and refuse to comply—you may lose your country forever. Authoritarianism thrives on silence, hesitation, and fear. The longer people wait, the more entrenched the regime becomes, making resistance exponentially harder. Every moment of inaction is a moment the regime uses to tighten its grip. History has shown that those who act early have the best chance of reclaiming their freedom. The time to fight back is now.
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Alexander Chee @alexanderchee.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
This will be played as an attack on universities and research and rightly so—it is—but someone on this list might save your life or that of someone you know if they could keep working. Many will die who didn’t need to if the cuts stand.
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Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
In a new lawsuit filed against Trump by state AGs, a family with a trans kid shares she died by suicide last month citing fears Trump would deny her access to gender-affirming care. "Her parents have expressed fear...that what happened to their daughter does not happen to other children."
The serious concerns over how the Order will detrimentally impact transgender
youth cannot be overstated. One Washingtonian, as her parents describe her, was a bright and
gentle soul who loved playing musical instruments, trying new things, and playing Magic the
Gathering. She was excited to learn Japanese and the impact of gender-affirming care was
immediately clear to her family. Her parents described that “her joy was clear with every new
milestone in her transition. She was so happy to get to the next step, to get closer to presenting
in a way that was true to herself.” But the day before the presidential election, she shared,
“[t]omorrow I get to find out if I’m illegal.” After the election, she asked her parents if they
could move to Canada because she was fearful of new restrictions on transgender youth and
worried about losing access to gender-affirming care. In January 2025, she took her life. After
the Order issued, her parents expressed that the outlook for transgender futures looks scary and
shared fears of what ending gender-affirming care would have meant for their daughter’s access
to therapy, puberty-delaying medication, hormones, and hope of surgery. Her parents have
expressed fear for the many lives who depend on gender-affirming care and that what happened
to their daughter does not happen to any other children.
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Margaret Killjoy @margaret.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
the fascists are looking to rigidly define gender not just to punish trans people like they claim but to lay the groundwork for the oppression of all women. when gender is legally mutable, it is harder to use it to restrict people’s rights. they want to build a cage around you, made from our bones
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Boston Review @bostonreview.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
The desire to shrink groups down to spaces of easy agreement isn’t conducive to movement building. If we can’t organize beyond the bounds of our comfort zones, we will never build movements large enough to combat the forces that would destroy us. @prisonculture.bsky.social @mskellymhayes.bsky.social
bostonreview.net
How Much Discomfort Is the Whole World Worth? - Boston Review
Movement building requires a culture of listening—not mastery of the right language.
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S Bear Bergman @sbearbergman.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
Read “What you can do, right now, for your trans and nonbinary friends, family, students and colleagues.“ by S. Bear Bergman on Medium: medium.com/@sbearbergma...
medium.com
What you can do, right now, for your trans and nonbinary friends, family, students and colleagues.
It’s very reasonable to be worried and trying to understand how to help. Here are some actionable suggestions for the short and medium term.
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Jonathan Edward Durham @thisone0verhere.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
them: vibe check me: throwing up everywhere
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Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha @thellpsx.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
archive.org/details/2025... can't stop the signal.
archive.org
CDC datasets uploaded before January 28th, 2025 : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
An archive of all CDC datasets uploaded to https://data.cdc.gov/browse before January 28th, 2025. Excludes corrupt datasets and data not publicly accessible.
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